The Beauty of the Alabama-Tennesee Football Rivalry

On Wednesday afternoon, I made one of the most scenic drives in the Tennessee Valley, down Tennessee 110, the highway from Fayetteville, Tenn., to Ardmore.

The highway carried me through the communities of Skinem, Blanche and Cash Point, among other places. I passed feed mills, crumbling barns and hills that rolled like spring water.

Finally, we arrived in the border towns of Ardmore, Ala., and Ardmore, Tenn., where the Alabama-Tennessee football rivarly is one of the biggest events of the year.

By most accounts, the towns' loyalties are split almost evenly between the Unviersity of Alabama and the University of Tennessee.

"If you rub it in too much or boast too much, they will fix you up,'' said Rickey Widner, 46, who runs Detail Systems on Main Street on the Alabama side of town. "At the end of the night, you'll know.''

Widner is regarded as one of the biggest Alabama fans on either side of town. On game week, he is known to play "Yea, Alabama,'' the school fight song, a little louder when he enters the drive-thru at Peoples National Bank on the Tennsessee side of town.

Peoples National Bank is run by Sandra Garrison, a long-time University of Tennessee fan. Every year, her bank is decorated on the Friday before the big game - half orange and white and half crimson and white.

"We've done it for so long,'' she said, "people expect it.''

After the game on Saturday, scheduled for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff, some of the fans will honk their car horns and wave the flags of their favorite teams. Some of them will paint the score of the game on storefronts, as they do each year.

Then they'll do it again next year.

"It's a big thing around here,'' said Wayne Daly, who runs a garage on the Alabama side of town. "Everybody has fun with it. Nobody gets mad. We gouge each other this week, but we don't mean anything by it.''

It is such a big thing in Ardmore that families are even split. Take the Dalys, for example. Wayne is one of the biggest Tennessee fans in town; His son, Cad, is an Alabama fan.

Widner is such a big Alabama fan that he wears Alabama apparel to work each day - an Alabama jersey or T-shirt and an Alabama ring or necklace.

The floor of his office is a crimson-and-white checkerboard. His ceiling tiles are crimson and white. His office walls are "elephant gray, baby,'' he said.

His mother, Louise, is a Tennessee fan.

This is the beauty of Southern football - border towns with split loyalties, fans who make friendly bets, fans who show their spirit before and after the games.

"There are usually annual bets,'' Widner said. "That's standard. But I ain't going to do anything crazy. I ain't going to wear orange. That's out of bounds.''